Davenport thanked for accomplishments

Thank you, Beverly Davenport, for the many things you did during your tenure as chancellor at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.

By reinstating the Lady Vols logo for all women’s teams at UTK, you healed a rift in the Tennessee family and showed you value and understand the legacy of the Lady Vols.

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By choosing not to outsource, you ensured UT workers who have been crucial to the functioning of the university still have jobs.

By securing private funding for the Pride Center, you provided support for a vulnerable group of students at no cost to taxpayers.

By establishing the Office of Title IX, you took an active approach to a problem that plagues university campuses and cost UTK millions of dollars in settled lawsuits prior to your arrival. Hopefully UTK won’t have to walk that road again.

Without infringing on First Amendment rights, you stood with students against hate speech and sent a powerful message that there is no room for hate on the UTK campus.

By all accounts you are loved by students and respected by faculty. With our nation dangerously divided on so many issues, the importance of the welcoming and supportive environment you actively fostered cannot be overstated. Not all chancellors do this.

We are fortunate to have had you for the short time we did. Thank you and best wishes as you move forward.

Mollie DeLozier, Knoxville

Trump right about rigged system

President Donald Trump is right when he says the system is rigged. The Supreme Court has seen to this with its Citizens United ruling, allowing money, virtually unchecked, to be poured into the coffers of legislators. In a word, they have legalized bribery.

The system is rigged where gerrymandering slants the results of elections toward the party doing the gerrymandering.

The system is rigged against the public when drug companies can prevent any action towards the negotiation of reasonable prices, and it is rigged when the majority of Americans want a free internet, but legislators can and do work against that because of donations they receive.

It is rigged when the head of the agency that is supposed to give us clean air and water hobnobs with polluters and casts experts on the effects of pollution out of his agency.